The History of Space Art

Long before the first Sputnik circled the earth in 1957, a certain breed
of artists, inspired by astronomical discoveries, adopted the whole cosmos
as their muse. Like artists re-creating the world of the dinosaurs,
these painters revelled in the challenge of combining
their latest scientific findings with their own creativity.

Even the most realistic portrait artist, if he's creative, brings a
vivid imagination to his studio, along with paints and brushes. The
goal of the artist is to look at reality, to form a personal impression
of it, and to develop the skills necessary to render the
impression in objective terms. The artist is constantly weighing
the photographic rendering of reality against the recreation he can
construct through his own imagination. And the balance he selects
between naturalism and imagination often becomes the artist's
identifiable style.

The artist is normally allowed great latitude in his adherence to reality.
Yet there is one category of art in which departures from reality oppose
the purpose of the art. The purpose is to visualize a part of reality
which is "unseeable", and the person who does this
is the scientific artist. The two sciences which the scientific artist
pursues are paleontology and astronomy. Both sciences need to have their
subject matter visualized in realistic, concrete terms--not just
laboratory symbols and other mumbo-jumbo.

When the scientific artist creates an accurate vision of the unseen object,
he not only provides inspiration to those working in the field, but he
provides a method of communication to the rest of the world: the
non-scientific public. In the case of astronomical art, there
is little question that the taxpayers of the world were rallied
behind the space program largely due to popular illustrated magazine
articles and books--like the Colliers
and Life
series of the '50s and the now-classic books by Chesley
Bonestell, with text by Werner von Braun, Willy Ley and others.

The astronomical artist of the last few decades had as much to do with the
success of the space effort as any technical advance. Just as early
American artists showed the public views of the unconquered West and
helped propel interest in exploration and expansion (as
artists of vision and realistic imagination always point the way), so too,
astronomical artists have shown the public what the unseen planets,
moons, comets, and distant reaches of the galaxy might look like when
we are able to be there in person.

The first space art appeared in 1865 with the illustrations by Emile
Bayard and A. de Neuvill for Jules Verne's novel, From the Earth
to the Moon. There had been imaginary views of other worlds, and
even of space flight before this. But until Verne's book
appeared, these views all had been heavily colored by mysticism rather
than science. The illustrations accompanying From the Earth to
the Moon and its sequel, A Trip Around the Moon,
were the first artistic impressions of space ever created
strictly according to scientific fact. For these books, Verne even had a
lunar map specially drawn by Beer and Maedlerm, the leading selenographers
of the day.

In 1874, James Nasmyth and James Carpenter published the classic study
of the earth's satellite, The Moon. A large and lavishly
illustrated volume, its numerous plates were reproduction of photographs of
plaster models of portions of the lunar surface, seen
both telescopically from Earth and as they would appear to an observer on
the Moon.

During and immediately following the turn of the century, many popular
books on astronomy were published and illustrated with space art. The
most outstanding illustrator of such books, Lucien Rudaux, was also the
first genuine astronomical artist. Rudaux (1874-1947) was both
an artist and a professional astronomer. He wrote and illustrated a
number of texts, such as the authoritative (and still in print)
Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy.

Other important artists of the early part of this century are: Scriven
Bolton, Abbe Moreux, Howard Russell Butler, Frank R. Paul, Rockwell Kent,
and Charles Schneeman. They published their art in many popular journals
and newspapers such as The Illustrated London News
, Science and Invention, Amazing,
Life, Astounding, and National
Geographic.

Astronomical art blossomed after the 1950s. In the years immediately
before and following the launch of Sputnik I (1957), the space art
that appeared in magazines such as Collier's, This Week,
and Coronet, and in
books , such as The Conquest of Space and Arthur C. Clarke's
Exploration of Space (art by Ralph A. Smith), helped convince
the public that space exploration was far from a fantasy and that it was
well within the reach of contemporary science and engineering.
Beyond the question of hardware, realistic
and accurate painting of other worlds showed that the moons and
planets were not as insubstantial as fuzzy astronomical photographs made
them seem, but were genuine worlds in their own right.

Modern space artists have both an easier and, at the same time, more
difficult job than the space artists of a generation ago. More discoveries
have been made about the nature of our neighboring planets in the last
decade than in all the previous history
of astronomy. Contemporary artists certainly have more factual material
to draw upon, yet this abundance also limits them. We know
what the surface of Mars looks like now--there is far less leeway for the
artist's own imagination.
The phrase "artist's impression"
attached to a space painting no longer means an imaginary guess.